75 #2
"Enough to threaten release. Not enough for me to confirm whether it is complete, altered, or selectively arranged."
Victor stepped forward. "What does it say?"
Marianne said, "Mr. Perry, we are not prepared to disclose contents without privilege protections in place."
Victor's smile was cold. "This is my house. Do not mistake courtesy for uncertainty."
Sebastian lifted a hand slightly, stopping Marianne before she could respond. His eyes remained on Dorothy.
"It concerns an incident at an old Hood facility," he said carefully. "A worker died. There were settlements. The file suggests senior people knew more before the incident than was publicly admitted."
Dorothy heard every word, and beneath each word, the ones he did not say.
"And you?"
Sebastian's face tightened.
Marianne said, "Dorothy."
Again, Sebastian stopped her.
"My initials appear in a margin note," he said.
The room went silent.
Trevor's gaze sharpened, not in accusation, but investigation. Hale immediately looked down at his folder, likely searching memory for every known Redvale reference. Victor became unnervingly still.
Dorothy looked only at Sebastian.
"Did you know?" she asked.
His answer came at once. "Not before the incident."
She believed him.
Instantly.
The immediacy of that belief hurt because it arrived with the shame of her earlier doubt. She had asked him if he used Vanessa. She had failed him once already. This time, her heart did not hesitate.
Sebastian saw something in her face.
It almost broke him.
"I was twenty-two," he said, quieter now.
"I attended meetings after the death. I knew there were settlements. I knew my father wanted silence. I argued for the facility to be closed, but I signed documents I should have read more closely. Years later, when I learned more, I rebuilt the company, dissolved that division, replaced the board,
improved compliance, funded worker safety programs under separate structures so the families would not be dragged back into public attention."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
The question was not accusatory this time.
That made his answer harder.
"Because Vanessa threatened to release it if I stayed near you."
Dorothy's breath caught.
The room sharpened around the admission.
Victor's cane struck the floor. "There it is."
Hale stepped forward. "That is extortion."
Marianne looked deeply unhappy that the word had been spoken outside a controlled legal context. "We are aware."
Dorothy ignored them all. "She told you to leave me."
Sebastian's eyes held hers.
"Yes."
"And you did."
The sentence came softly.
It hurt him more than if she had shouted.
"I was trying to keep you out of another scandal."
"No," Dorothy said, shaking her head once. "Do not dress this up as protection."
Sebastian's face tightened. "It was protection."
"It was silence."
"It was risk management."
"It was abandonment with legal vocabulary."
The words struck hard enough that he looked away.
Dorothy's eyes burned, but she did not stop. Not now. Not after the night, the email, the title, the careful distance that had made her feel like she was back in a corridor waiting for a call that never came.
"You were angry with me," she said. "You had the right to be. You needed distance. I accepted that even though it hurt. But then Vanessa threatened you, and instead of telling me the truth, you let me believe your distance was my punishment."
Sebastian looked back sharply. "No."
"Yes," she said. "That is what it felt like."
His voice roughened. "I did not want you tied to Redvale."
"I am already tied to it because Vanessa chose me as the reason to use it."
"You do not understand what this could do."
"Then help me understand."
"I can't."
The words broke out of him.
Not loudly.
But with enough force that the room stilled again.
Dorothy stared at him.
Sebastian's face had gone pale. "Not fully. Not yet. Not without counsel. Not without knowing what is forged, what is incomplete, what implicates people who are dead, what reopens settlements with families who were promised privacy,
what destroys current hospital contracts tied to your foundation before we can separate truth from weapon."
He took a breath, but it did not steady him.
"If I speak too soon, I may endanger Hood Enterprises. If I stay near you publicly, Vanessa uses me to stain your foundation. If I tell you everything without legal structure, I may breach agreements that hurt the very families already harmed by my father's company. If I say nothing, I hurt you.
Every choice is wrong."
For the first time, Dorothy saw the trap in full.
Not Vanessa's usual melodrama. A real trap.
Corporate liability. Dead workers. Sealed settlements.
Privacy of victims. A company built on medical trust.
Dorothy's foundation connected to Hood's work.
Sebastian's pride, guilt, and fear all knotted around a file designed to make his presence dangerous.
Her anger did not disappear.
It changed shape.
"You should have told me that much," she said.
Sebastian's eyes closed briefly.
"Yes."
The answer came with no defense.
Dorothy almost flinched at the echo of Trevor's new habit, but Sebastian's yes was his own, raw and immediate.